When he was an All-CIAA quarterback at North Carolina Central who later gained a tryout as an end with the old AFL Boston Patriots, Robert "Al" Montgomery was a 6-foot-4, 235-pounder who was considered a giant.
That large, physical stature also gave Montgomery a presence when his playing career was over and he became a coach and physical education teacher at Charlotte's old Second Ward High School.
"He absolutely had a presence in any room he entered," said current Mecklenburg County commissioner Arthur Griffin, a 1966 Second Ward graduate. "Not only was he a coach, but he was a physical education teacher. His physical stature created respect. But he also was as kind as a big teddy bear. He had a big voracious belly laugh that you could hear all over the football field or the gymnasium.
"And, as a teacher, he taught about grit and persistence and determination and was a classic teacher of those traits. He was always trying to get the very best out of you, whether it was on the football field or in physical education activities."
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Montgomery was a star player before he became "Big Al" the legendary coach.
And on May 4th, Montgomery will be inducted into the Gaston County Sports Hall of Fame alongside Danny Anderson, Steve Culbertson and Hester Martin Haynes. University of Tennessee basketball coach Rick Barnes will be the keynote speaker.
A 1953 Highland High graduate, Montgomery was a three-sport standout in football, basketball and baseball who helped the Rams win two state titles in baseball (1951 and 1952) and advance to the state championship games in football (1949) and basketball (1952).
He went to North Carolina Central (then called North Carolina College) and become a starting quarterback for Eagles' CIAA championship teams in 1953, 1954 and 1956 and was named All-CIAA quarterback in 1956. In 1984, the school honored Montgomery with induction on the NCCU Hall of Fame.
After college, Montgomery served in the U.S. Army from 1958 to 1960 before being invited to a tryout for the first-year AFL's Boston Patriots (now the New England Patriots) as an end. After being released, he was hired as an assistant coach at Allen University.
In the summer of 1961, Montgomery was hired at Second Ward, Charlotte's oldest African-American high school, as the Tigers' head football coach. At Second Ward, he inherited one of the school's two eventual NFL players — defensive back Randy Staten — and would soon coach a player considered one of the greatest breakaway runners in N.C. high school history.
That player, Jimmie Lee Kirkpatrick, would help Montgomery's Tigers win the 1963 state title with an unbeaten 8-0-1 record.
"I knew about 'Big Al' before I got to Second Ward because he played local baseball and he was one of the best athletes around," Kirkpatrick said. "When I got to Second Ward, we were coming off a tough year (0-8-1 record) the year before. I don't know that he knew a lot about me. So, it was important to make a good impression.
"And we turned it around. I really respected coach. He had a great sense of the Kirkpatrick would go on to greater importance in local and state history by being among the first African-American players to integrate formerly all-white schools."
In the process, he left Montgomery and Second Ward behind to play at Myers Park.
And in 1965, while Kirkpatrick was leading the Mustangs to an 11-0 record and state title in 1965, Second Ward slipped to a 5-4 record after back-to-back conference titles. Even more devastating was the decision that Second Ward would be closed after the 1968-69 school year when the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools would be fully integrated.
But Kirkpatrick says his coach never questioned his decision to leave Second Ward and go to Myers Park.
"He was always very supportive," said Kirkpatrick, who went on to play at Purdue University and currently presents an award to top Mecklenburg County student-athletes every year in his honor at the Duke's Mayo Bowl at Charlotte's Bank of America Stadium. "Over the years, every time I'd come home, I'd look him up."